POLS V3401

Light readings only. You will not know the weighting / grading of exams beforehand, and the exam structure is kind of sprung on you. One midterm, one Final, 2 quizzes.

This class (I took the level 1000 version designed as Intro) is to be avoided at all costs. Frankly disorganized lectures that bounce between timelines, extremely surface level, repetitive and mind numbing. You will go to class to hear her read from her own book, and the analysis of each different country we study is the exact same. Content is not interesting either, it is like trying to intellectualize common sense, and the professor is not engaging. I took this as a European student and was almost laughing at the amount of generalizations and lies told about both European civilization and individual countries. Never mind this, the TA's are rather bad at preparing you for exams, have no grasp on what we are being examined on and seem very inexperienced. Both the professor and them are not clear whatsoever about what exams will look like, how they will be graded etc. The TA's also openly mock the professor's grading/ teaching capacities for this reason. This class is often seen as a "GPA killer" not because it is hard to any degree, in fact exams are fair and the content is extremely easy. It is instead because exams are graded randomly and really with no method. No one gets A's, there's no curve, there's no transparency and you won't be able to ever get a hold of any professor or TA. Bottom line: you shouldn't enter academia and become a professor just because you wrote a boo…

normal workload. tons of reading per week. 2 take home exams with a week to complete. 3 essays per exam. graded really harshly

Harshest grader in this school. Ruining my GPA.

Lots of reading - necessary at some point but I always just read them as I did the exams 2 take home midterms - very difficult/impossible to get an A but not too hard to get a B+ (each consists of three short essays) 1 take home final - same structure as midterms but more broad questions, 4 essays

I never write CULPA reviews but this course is too good to pass up. I'm sitting here, grieving over a tedious take home final for this course, but I've truly never been so inspired by a course. Professor Berman is extremely well versed in her field and, unlike other brilliant professors, is equally as good at communicating her knowledge. If you take this class GO TO LECTURE. Without Berman's lectures I would not have walked away from this class with the fully developed picture of the history of Europe that I have now.

Above average but reasonable. Take home exams.

I took this class a couple of years ago and really liked it. It really changed the way I thought about poli sci. Most of the other classes I took were fairly dry and narrow, but this one really taught me about a subject I thought I already knew. I came into the class thinking I knew a lot about European history already, but it really made me think again about topics I thought I had covered. The lectures were very clear and very interesting and unlike many other courses really worked with the readings in interesting ways. The lectures didn't go over the readings but made you think about their different perspectives and strengths and weaknesses. By the end of the class I understood more about how good debates were structured and how political scientists differed from historians. I also had a much better understanding of European history and how it was similar to and different from the histories of other parts of the world. The big patterns of European politics made sense to me and I was able to use that in other classes. The class made me want to take more political science courses and more European classes. I would strongly recommend it.